


While the City Waits

by willowoak_walker



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9843545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoak_walker/pseuds/willowoak_walker
Summary: A couple of short pieces about the Leverage OT3





	1. There is No Plan M

**Author's Note:**

> There is no Plan M

Not in Parker’s system. They use other ways of keeping track of what plan they’re on. There is no plan M. In plan M Hardison dies. That is unacceptable.

There are plans where Eliot dies. They tend to be backups to backups to backups, but they exist. There are some goals (Hardison’s survival, most pressingly) that Parker would willingly sacrifice Eliot for. He knows. (He wishes her own survival made the list.) 

There are plans where Parker dies. They are also backups to backups, but they exist. There are many things Parker would be willing to die for. (Hardison. Eliot. Possibly even Nate or Sophie, but they don’t figure into the plans these days.)

Even after the kids arrive, there is no plan where Hardison dies. Not even to save the children.

There’s an absolutely pragmatic reason for that.

Both Parker and Eliot think that Hardison’s kids would be better off dead than raised by monsters.

If Hardison dies by violence, if Hardison is killed, if there is someone to _blame_ , and Eliot or Parker is still alive -

The world will _burn_.

There are some things you can never be clean of. 

And the vengeance they would exact would be such a thing.


	2. Warning Signs

You’ve learned to read the city by the way the Hardison kids get home from school. There are three of them, the oldest 16, the youngest 12. A mixed bag of adopted kids who know some rather worrying things. (Like the details of the Burmese Civil War. Or the name of the current President of San Lorenzo. Or how to properly clean a rifle. Or the classifications of computer viruses. Or …) Their parents run the Bridgeport Brewpub, about five blocks away. And they live above it. 

So when everything’s normal, they just walk home. All three together. 

When an adult comes to walk with them you worry. (The Bridgeport Crew is somewhere between Batman and a Mafia, as far as you can tell. The kids come unarmed to school. But the adults who meet them at the edge of the property - probably don’t. They have the courtesy to keep the distribution out of sight. You only spotted it once, and only because you were leaving early.)

The adult is usually a parent. Parker or Hardison. (He has a first name. Once, you heard his wife use it.) Almost as often, though, it’s Eliot or Amy. Aunt Amy, the kids call her. If someone presses the kids will say Eliot's an uncle. But sometimes they forget and call him 'Dad'.

When Eliot picks them up in his flashy car, you tell your friends to be extra careful for the next few nights. (The Bridgeport Crew doesn’t use guns. Their enemies do.)

When the unmarked van makes an appearance, you call your friends and hide in the safest basement you can find. (The unmarked van’s name is Lucille. You almost wish you didn’t know that.)


	3. Let's Talk About That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr user sroloc-elbisivni asked me:
> 
> Hello and may I have a moment of your time today to talk about demiromantic Eliot Spencer?

**Did you just _say_** _Arosepc Eliot Spencer?_

Demiro ELIOT SpenCER?

YES LET’S TALK ABOUT IT.

Let’s talk about Eliot falling in love with Amy while doing training nearby, loving her with relief because he thought love wasn’t for him, and the way he was heartbroken when she turned away from him, but understood. How could she know him, the way he was? How could she love him without knowing him?

Let’s talk about the way he didn’t love anyone else for years. Not until he joined the rebellion in San Lorenzo and worked with people who knew him. Knew him in ways he was deeply uncomfortable with, but knew him. Let’s talk about the soldier he fell in love with over the poker table. Let’s talk about the way he felt about this. The way the man he loved was so human, so frustrating, so transparent, so determined to do good, that ELiot couldn’t _help_ but love him.

Let’s talk about how Eliot left because he couldn’t deal with the intensity of these strange and hungry feelings. The way he desperately wanted to be the sort of man who deserved to love and be loved. (And let’s talk about how the next time he saw the man he loved, he didn’t recognize him.)

Let’s talk about _till my dying day_ , and how long and how painful the journey was toward being able to say that. How he loved them by the end of season two, when they stood watching Nate sacrifice himself so they could get away, but the other two times had gone so _badly_ that Eliot didn’t know what to do. Except love them and keep them alive. Let’s talk about Hardison tossing him a list of queer terms, and Eliot’s feeling of _relief_ at finding that there’s a word for him. Let’s talk about Hardison and Parker leaning around and watching him from the next room, and how he knew exactly what they were doing. 

Let’s do that.


End file.
